


Head Over Feet

by bakaprincess85



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Romance, F/M, Romance, Shyness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4171323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakaprincess85/pseuds/bakaprincess85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poppy might have been born into nobility and been given an above average education due her status in the Ostwick's Circle of Magi, but nothing and no one had spoken to her or prepared her on affairs of the heart. Bother and damnation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's the Small Things

"Bother and damnation," Poppy mumbled to herself as she ran quickly walked away from the Commander of the Inquisition's forces, Cullen.

Poppy might have been born into nobility and been given an above average education due her status in the Ostwick's Circle of Magi, but nothing and no one had spoken to her or prepared her on affairs of the heart. They might have met on the battlefield of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, but that didn't stop Poppy from acting all awkward in his presence once they were introduced. She had stammered out a reply at Cassandra's prompt, and was unsurprised when she saw that she hadn't made much of a first impression on the handsome Commander of the Inquisition's forces.  
Ever since then she had taken to actively avoiding the man.

Poppy knew that it wasn't very polite from her to keep avoiding him. She was aware the he kept giving her looks in the War Room where they kept council. However, no matter how much she tried to gather her courage to approach him, start talking to him, or even just greeting him in the corridors when their paths crossed, she would chicken out.

She could hear people sniggering and snickering as she ran quickly walked away all around her. Bother and damnation if she didn't feel her face become red as a radish. Everyone knew of her avoidance of the Commander. There were rumours floating around that she was afraid of him because he was a Templar, that she hated him because of it and couldn't stand the sight of him, and several others. However none of them had guessed right so far. Well, perhaps Varric did but he never said, merely gave her a look that did not make her feel better.

It also didn't help that whenever she had caught Cullen's eyes they were full of confusion and pain which made her feel like a heel every time she saw it. She knew that it wasn't good for the Inquisition morale that the Commander and the Inquisitor didn't get along. It didn't help matters that she had chosen the Mages over the Templars, it merely stoked fire to the rumours.

To make herself feel better about it she had started to leave small gifts in the Commander's office (when he was absent of course) whenever she had returned from a mission. She and her companions had gotten so used to picking everything they had come across, be it a metal, herb, necklace, junk, or crafting materials, that no one suspected her when she picked up something that had caught her eye. They were small things that made her think of him. Flowers that she picked just before they returned to Skyhold so that they would still be fresh when she left them on his desk, pretty stones and shells that she saw on the coast, a paperweight after she heard him comment about being afraid that his papers would scatter because of the drafts in Skyhold, and various other bricks and bracks she found in her travels.

She had been so focused on sneaking around his office and trying not to be seen by others, that it took her until after she and Hawke had ended up in the Fade to notice that instead of throwing the flowers away, Cullen had them pressed; that instead of throwing the rocks and shells away, Cullen had put them in Serault glass bowls and put the bowls on display on his bookshelves; that instead of throwing away the paperweight, Cullen used it to make sure the papers didn't scatter due to the drafts. She also saw the other bricks and bracks proudly shown on his bookshelves.

All those little things made Poppy's heart almost burst out of her chest. She wasn't ashamed to admit that her eyes didn't remain dry after that realization.

Even more, she was ashamed of her ongoing avoidance of the man.

It took her until she went to the Chantry to pray for her success in the Winter Palace to speak to him.


	2. First Impressions

She had never expected to be invited to the Conclave. She had never expected to be the only one left alive after Corypheus's attack on said Conclave.

After Poppy, Cassandra, Varric and Solas had fought the demons in front of the ruins that were once the Temple of Sacred Ashes, she had sighed in exhaustion. Having woken from her unconsciousness by the pain in her left hand, being interrogated by Leliana and Cassandra, having to fight a horde of demons and other nasty things when she had never fought in her life, left her feeling tired to the bone. She had hoped that once the Rift or Breach or whatever it was they called the green wound in the sky had been closed, she might earn herself a rest.

Swiping at her sweaty forehead, she was unprepared to hear a man's voice coming closer to them.

"Lady Cassandra, you managed to close the rift. Well done."

She turned her head curiously towards where the voice was coming from and felt her breath leave her. A man was stalking towards them. He had a stern expression on his face and wore armour that reminded Poppy of a lion's mane. It made him look larger than life. His face was extremely handsome and he had a small scar that ran up the right side of his lip. Her hands started sweating and she could feel butterflies in her stomach.

Cassandra on the other hand didn't react, except with a sigh.

"Do not thank me, Commander. This is the prisoner's doing."

If she wasn't so overwhelmed by the man's arrival, she would have bristled at still being called a prisoner. However, she remained quiet and gulped as the handsome man turned to her.

"Is it?" he said with a sceptic look on his face. "I hope they're right about you. We've lost a lot of people getting you here."

Poppy wanted to reply with a witty retort, hoping to make a good impression on him. You're not the only one hoping that, she wanted to say, but all she managed to get out of her mouth was an incomprehensible stutter. She could feel her cheeks grow warm at her faux pas and shut her eyes close in mortification. She could feel their eyes on her and almost groaned out loud, when the same man that caused her to stutter came to her rescue.

"We'll see soon enough, won't we?"

Poppy was confused and embarrassed and mortified. There went her good first impression.

 


	3. Vows

First real conversation they had and Poppy had to go and ruin it by asking him about vows of celibacy? Oh Maker, please take her now. She could feel her face getting red and she screwed up her eyes closed to not see his expression of disgust. She was tempted to just scream and hide herself in her chambers and never come out again. Why oh why did she have to ask him about Templars giving up physical temptations. And the conversation was going so well! She had learned that he was recruited to the Inquisition in Kirkwall and that he was there when the mage uprising began. And then she had to go and ruin it by asking him about Templar vows. Maker, please have mercy on her stupid, stupid soul.

“Physical? Why-," Cullen broke off to clear his throat. "W hy would you... ?"

Oh, Maker, why couldn't you just go away and ignore this ignorant fool?  Poppy wailed in her head as she stopped resisting the temptation to hide her red face in her arms. Mercy was on her side today, because she was sitting in front of Cullen. That also made it possible to actually talk to him. If she looked him in the face... then she'd probably just squeak again and run away...

" That’s not expected. Templars can marry...  although  there  are rules around it, and the order must grant permission… s ome may choose to give up more to prove their devotion, but it’s, um, not required.”

Poppy wanted to stop there and then, but her mouth apparently had a will of its own and she found herself stuttering out a, "Have you?"

There was a pregnant pause between them and the awkward mage swore she could hear the birds chirping outside the room. 

After a few moments, Cullen finally replied, “Me? I… um… no, I’ve taken no such vows. Maker’s breath...  c an we speak of something else?”

" Yesplease I'msorry !" she squeaked out and tried to run away like she always did. She didn't come far though as she felt his masculine hand wrap around her wrist gently.

"You don't have to go," she heard him say gently. Oh, Maker - her heart was in danger of giving out because it beat so fast. She couldn't do anything but stand there like an idiot and just feel his hand on her wrist. It was so warm and she could feel the calluses from his sword training and-

"I apologize if I have done something to frighten you," he continued, talking to her gently like she was a frightened animal that was about to run.

He was apologizing? He, who didn't have anything to apologize about?

Poppy's knees gave out and she slumped to the floor, her head on her knees.

"Not your fault," she mumbled depressingly. While that may have been true in terms of him doing something to her, it was completely his fault in terms of making her heart go awry and her mind go blank  every time  she saw him.

She could hear him clamber out of the bench. 

"Maker, are you alright?" he asked her in concern, kneeling down on the floor in front of her.

Oh goody, now he made him kneel on her hard floor in his metal  armour . This day couldn't get any better. She tried to calm her heart and think of something to say to him to alleviate his worries, but her tongue once again had better things than to listen to her mind.

"You just make me so nervous all the time that I have no idea what I'm doing and trying to talk to you just makes things worse if I even manage to get something out," she blurted out so fast that he had to have troubles translating it in his mind.

"In-" he tried to say, but she continued as if she didn't hear him.

"And it's not because I'm afraid of you, I'm really not, you just make me so nervous all the time, my heart beats so fast that my chest hurts, my hands go all sweaty and my mind blank and I can't think of a thing to do or say when I'm near you," she babbled. 

Then she sighed.

"I must look so stupid to you now," she whispered into her knees.

"Not stupid, no," he replied after a  length y  pause.

And then he put his warm hand on the back of her head and pulled her to him.


End file.
